A Vietnamese real estate mogul has been handed the death penalty for her role in the biggest fraud case in the country's history.
Vietnamese real estate tycoon Truong My Lan was sentenced to death on Thursday as punishment for her role in a 304 trillion dong ($12.46 billion) financial fraud case, Vietnam's biggest on record.
Lan, the chairwoman of real estate developer Van Thinh Phat Holdings Group, was found guilty of embezzlement, bribery and violations of banking rules at the end of a trial in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam's largest city and business hub.
"The defendant's actions ... eroded people's trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state," read the verdict, with prosecutors saying that the total damages caused by the amount to €27bn - equivalent to six percent of Vietnam's GDP in 2023.
Police say the scam’s victims are all SCB bondholders who cannot withdraw their money and have not received interest or principal payments since Lan’s arrest.
Hundreds of people began to stage protests in the capital Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, a relatively rare occurrence in the one-party communist state, after Lan’s arrest in October 2022.
Police have identified around 42,000 victims of the scandal, which has shocked the Southeast Asian country.
Lan, 67, denied the charges and blamed her subordinates.
"I am so angry that I was stupid enough to get involved in this very fierce business environment, the banking sector, which I have little knowledge of," she said, according to state media, adding that she has considered suicide.
"In my desperation, I thought of death," she said."
Lan and 85 other defendants were arrested as part of a national corruption crackdown that has swept up numerous officials and members of Vietnam's business elite in recent years.
Lan is eligible to appeal the sentence under Vietnamese law
More than 4,400 people have been indicted across more than 1,700 graft cases since 2021, although the death sentence is an unusually severe punishment.
Source:
dw.com, AP, Reuters, April 11, 2024
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
— Oscar Wilde
